


What's It Gonna Be

by lilaliacs



Category: I.O.I (Band), Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, M/M, Songfic, dumb teenagers with dumb crushes, there is no archive warning about ridiculous comphet behaviour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-03-22 15:50:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13767402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilaliacs/pseuds/lilaliacs
Summary: “So you’re saying instead of approaching our own crush, which would never work because we’d get nervous, we approach each other’s crushes and play as each other’s wingmen?” She clarified.“Yeah!”“This…” Yoojung looked at the mess of glittering lines and doodles again. “This could actually work.” She decided.





	1. part i

**Author's Note:**

> based on this master piece by shura

I. 

“That’s what you woke me up for at the ass-crack of dawn?!” 

“Yoojung, this is something of utmost importance.” 

Yoojung turned her eyes to the ceiling in a silent plea, even though she knew Jihoon couldn’t see it through the phone she was holding. She had its cord wrapped around her finger and thought about just ripping it off and going back to sleep, but her mother surely wouldn’t be amused. 

“Jihoon, listen,” She tried to sound as unthreatening as possible. “I love you, but I really don’t care whether your laces match your shirt or not.” 

“That was not my point.” Jihoon reminded her. “I asked if it would make me look like a cartoon character. Which, by the way, is not inherently a good or bad thing.” 

“Isn’t it?” Yoojung rubbed her eyes and suppressed a yawn. 

Wednesday’s were her favourite days of the week because her first class started at 10 AM so she could sleep in. It was a Wednesday morning, 7.30 AM, and she wasn’t sleeping. 

“I feel like you’re not taking this conversation seriously.” She could hear Jihoon’s pout over the static. 

“I’ll take you seriously when you steal my Wednesday mornings over more important things than shoelaces.” 

“Shoelaces are important! What would you do without shoelaces?” 

“Sleep.” She replied wistfully. 

“We get it, Yoojung, some of us chose their classes wisely and have mornings off, we _get_ it.” 

“You say that, but you still woke me up.” 

“And I said I was sorry!” Jihoon wanted to continue to defend himself, but Yoojung heard his mother's voice calling for him from somewhere on the other end. “Okay I have to leave, guess I’ll never find out whether I look like a cartoon character or not, you’re a terrible best friend, love you, see you at lunch.” 

Another thing that Yoojung loved about Wednesdays was drama club meetings in the afternoon. None of her and Jihoon’s shared classes were scheduled for the day so lunch was usually the first time they saw each other that day before heading to the auditorium- if Jihoon didn’t decide to rob her of her precious rest in the middle of the night. 

When the line went dead, she briefly considered turning around and trying to catch another hour or two of sleep, but all of her loved ones seemed to be against her today. 

“Yoojung, are you up? Breakfast is ready!” 

Her mother knew full well that Yoojung was awake, she surely had heard her daughter curse at the phone ringing ten minutes ago. Yoojung thought it was cute that her mother valued their breakfasts together as much as she did, but she had believed that, for Wednesdays at least, she would let her sleep through them for the rest of her high school career. 

“I’ll be right down!” She called back. Wednesday morning rest was important, but she would have probably felt bad to leave her mother alone at breakfast. 

As soon as she opened the door to her room, she could hear soft little taps hurrying over from the stairs and only a second later Poe was making his usual circles around and in between her legs. She let him be for a few seconds, fondly watching the Westie’s usual greeting ritual before crouching down and lifting him up. She was still not entirely awake as she slowly made her way down the stairs, scratching behind Poe’s ears while slowly taking step after step. 

“Good morning!” Her mother chirped as she set down a cup of coffee at Yoojung’s usual seat. 

“It’s not the morning, it’s the night.” 

“You’re usually already up at this time.” 

“On Wednesdays, it’s the night.” 

Her mother smiled. “What did Jihoon want?” 

“Only stupid things, because he’s stupid, I hate him.” 

“Of course.” A small mountain of scrambled eggs was dumped on Yoojung’s plate with the next words. “You’re going to his place after school later, right?” 

“Yeah.” 

A thing Yoojung sometimes pretended to not love about Wednesdays was the after-drama-club dinner that had become a tradition for her and Jihoon during middle school. Sohye had once mentioned that she didn’t understand why that one afternoon in the week was special when Yoojung and Jihoon hung out on most of the other afternoons in the week, but Jihoon had immediately shut her down, saying she wouldn’t understand. Yoojung thought Sohye had a point, and she knew Jihoon thought so too, he just liked to be complicated. 

Her mother had to leave for work soon after and left Yoojung alone to all the time she could have spent sleeping. Yoojung didn’t really know what to do with all that time and herself, doing homework before school sounded way too stressful, doing chores way too productive, but doing nothing was boring. 

She settled for taking Poe on a short walk around the neighbourhood, cleaning up the kitchen only enough that her mother would notice and not nag her about it, and killed the rest of the morning zapping through the weird contents the TV had to offer at this time of day. When she was watching a middle-aged british lady fuck up her third try at making macarons, it was time to actually leave the house and she still wasn’t over the fact that Jihoon had woken her up. Sleep was better than macarons by far. 

The school was only a ten minute walk from her house and usually she had a set rhythm of everything happening from waking up to sitting down at her usual seat in class, but with too much time to spare this morning, her whole routine had fallen behind. Damn those macarons. 

Slightly out of breath and with the resolution to have one best friend less by the end of the day, Yoojung reached her biology class finally. 

Mr. Ha, a short man in his mid-30s, looked up from his desk and raised an amused eyebrow. “Good morning Miss Choi.” He greeted. 

“Good morning.” Yoojung huffed. “I’m sorry, I-” 

“Doesn’t matter, just don’t be late again, I guess, or I’ll have to write it down in that unnecessary attendance list I never got the point of.” He waved her over to her vacant seat and turned back to the papers in front of him, sorting through them. 

Yoojung counted her blessings that this wasn’t history class or maths, Mrs. Kwon and Mrs. Park scared the shit out of her. Mr. Ha usually let them do what they wanted as long as they paid attention to the weird stories he sometimes told. 

Before Yoojung could attempt to pay attention to her teacher though, another voice quietly cut through. “He’s a hypocrite, he only got here about a minute before you did.” 

Yoojung’s head shot up way faster than was probably healthy to turn to the boy in front of her. 

Woojin’s small grin caught her off-guard and by the time she thought she could have replied anything, it would have been weird, so she just smiled back. It felt more like a grimace. 

Another thing Yoojung loved about Wednesdays was the fact that biology was her first class of the day. 

She hated cliches, and had used to very openly proclaim this dislike at any given opportunity, until Jihoon had started calling her out on her very own chick-flick cliche crush on Park Woojin. 

Woojin was, to sound exactly like that cliche, pretty much perfect. Yoojung was sure every person in this school had a little bit of a crush on Woojin, it wasn’t hard. He was good-looking, nice and funny. When he laughed, it made an adorable uneven tooth visible. He was popular, the soccer team’s biggest asset, not a bully despite school hierarchy maybe suggesting it, but helpful and kind. 

And well, Yoojung was just Yoojung, sitting behind him in biology, probably barely even an acquaintance to him. 

She suppressed a sigh as Woojin turned back to the front. She liked biology if only for the fact that some of Mr. Ha’s stories were genuinely entertaining and the tiny barely-moments she sometimes had with Woojin. 

The rest of the day went by relatively uneventful, ignoring the fact that Mrs. Shin had yelled at an unsuspecting middle schooler for about 10 minutes before the kid could explain that he hadn’t been the one who broke the card holder the- that had been slightly amusing, even as Yoojung felt bad for the kid. 

Mrs. Shin had dismissed all of them early after that incident, and Yoojung decided that now was as good a time as any to attempt to tame the bird’s nest that still resided on her head from this morning. She hadn’t really had time to look for her hairbrush. 

When she opened the door to the bathroom she was greeted with some kind of colourful mess. 

The contents of an opened bag were spread around part of the floor, in the midst of it sat a girl. Her back was to Yoojung, so she could only make out the high ponytail and the sweatshirt in the same colours Woojin’s varsity jacket had. 

Yoojung barely knew anyone from the cheer squad, they intimidated her and seemed to always move in groups, which intimidated her even more, but she guessed that you couldn’t go around this school without knowing who Kim Doyeon was. In Yoojung’s case, she thought that her knowledge of Doyeon’s identity probably stemmed from the fact that Yoojung was Park Jihoon’s best friend. 

“Oh, I didn’t expect anyone to come in here before the end of the lesson!” Doyeon had noticed her and turned to face her. “I’m sorry this has to look really weird.” She vaguely gestured around the mess of notebooks and pens. 

“I lost my chapstick, I think.” She explained. 

Yoojung had to admit that it did look weird, but who expected to find their school’s head cheerleader on the ground of the bathroom, going through the contents of her bag for a chapstick? More than weird, Yoojung thought it was kind of endearing. Maybe cheerleaders weren’t so intimidating after all.  
“It’s fine.” She smiled. “Hold on…” She pulled open the front of her own backpack and fished for a bright pink tube of chapstick she always carried there. 

“Here you go.” She added, holding out the tube to Doyeon on the ground. “It’s bubblegum flavoured.” 

“You’re a lifesaver!” Doyeon exclaimed, and the wide grin that spread on her face made Yoojung’s widen that little much more. “Yoojung, right?” 

She nodded. “We have science together.” She informed Doyeon. 

“Right, you were the one that nearly blew up that experiment last month!” There was no judgement in her voice, in fact she seemed kind of excited about it. Yoojung could still feel heat rise to her cheeks. 

“That was Hyungseob’s fault, mostly…” She muttered. 

Her, Yeonjung, Hyungseob and Sohye shared that class and usually her and Hyungseob managed to call dibs on either of the other two as a labpartner. Yeonjung and Sohye seemed to be two of the only people in that class who knew what they were doing, after all. But last month something in their plan had gone wrong and they had been paired with each other. Yoojung was just glad nothing had actually caught fire. 

“It was the best thing that ever happened in that class, I think even Miss Im thought it was funny.” Doyeon’s voice seemed uneven with suppressed laughter. 

Yoojung shortly considered if Doyeon was laughing at her, making fun of her, mocking her like some kind of movie-cheerleader. But paying close attention she could tell that Doyeon was just laughing out of genuine joy- the crinkles by her eyes looked so natural on her pretty face, like she was meant to always laugh and her small chuckles seemed to bubble out of her in a sweet little melody. Yoojung decided she liked Doyeon’s laugh. 

“Well, she might have thought it was funny, but she still made us write a really boring essay for it.” Yoojung told her. 

It was weird to have normal class-related small-talk with Doyeon in the bathroom of all places. She didn’t think they had actually spoken before. But even though it was weird, she guessed she was okay with it. 

“Do you need help with that?” She asked, while Doyeon bent down to gather her belongings again. She didn’t wait for a reply before she started gathering some stray pens. 

“You’re so sweet.” Doyeon smiled. “Thank you.” 

The bell signalled the start of lunch, and Yoojung suddenly remembered that she had promised to meet Jihoon in the cafeteria before the drama club meeting. He didn’t like to be kept waiting, but Yoojung suspected that he would understand. 

“I gotta run.” She told Doyeon. “See you in science, I guess?” 

“Yeah, see you!” 

Only when Yoojung had sprinted to the cafeteria in record time and let herself drop in the chair next to Jihoon’s did she realize that she had neither fixed her hair, nor taken the chapstick back from Doyeon. 

 

II. 

“Jihoon!” His mother called from downstairs, interrupting the grand apology he wanted to make to Yoojung for waking her up. “Hurry up, we’re late!” 

“Okay I have to leave, guess I’ll never find out whether I look like a cartoon character or not, you’re a terrible best friend, love you, see you at lunch.” He made kissy noises at the speaker before hanging up and sprinting down the stairs. 

His mother wordlessly held out a cup of coffee to him while already stuffing a bunch of papers into her bag rather unceremoniously. Before coffee stains could join the crumples on these no doubt official documents, Jihoon hurried to take the cup from her and downed it as fast as one could down seethingly hot dirt-water from hell. 

He was not a fan of coffee, but he was a fan of caffeine. It was not a good mixture. 

“Didn’t get a lot of sleep last night?” His mother asked sympathetically, as Jihoon put down the cup in the sink. 

He just shrugged nonchalantly. She was better off not knowing that he had been awake for most of the night finishing an essay he had forgotten about, probably. 

He thought that he would be able to fare way better with forgetting homework if he too had been smarter with the classes he took - Yoojung was probably sound asleep again now. And if she wasn't, she could do homework she’d forgotten without having to sacrifice her body’s well needed rest. Jihoon was only a tiny bit bitter. 

“Are you ready to go?” His mother interrupted his thoughts. 

He wasn’t, but a look at the time told him he had to be, so he followed her to her car outside. 

The walk to school wasn’t particularly long but he was particularly hard to wake up in the mornings and didn’t have the time to take the walk, so his mother usually dropped him off on the way to work. He’d told her he could get his own car, he’d gotten his license last summer, but she had only laughed and said she didn’t want to do that to their neighbourhood or society in general. 

His first lesson that day was sociology and as soon as he’d entered the classroom and sat down, his head hit the desk table. He didn’t lift it as the room filled around him, didn’t lift it when Mr. Yoon walked in a few minutes before the start of the lesson, and wouldn’t have lifted it when Sohye sat down next to him, had she not forcefully pulled him into a sitting position. 

“Sleep when you’re dead.” Was her greeting.  
“Is that an option?” He yawned, running his fingers through his hair in an attempt to tame it. 

Sohye raised an eyebrow at him, then took a guess: “Dead people don’t have to write the essay for lit?” 

Jihoon nodded solemnly. “Dead people don’t have to write the paper for lit.” He confirmed. 

While Sohye had a much greater appreciation for literature as a subject, she maybe hated homework assignments even more than Jihoon did. ‘Proof, that teachers can’t do their job properly’, she called them. 

She patted his shoulder in silent understanding, as Mr. Yoon cleared his throat at the front of the room to indicate the start of the lesson. 

Any other teacher could have probably coughed up a lung and nobody would have cared, but Mr. Yoon was generally popular among the student body. He was kind, understanding, and tended to forget to give homework. Sometimes, his puns were funny.  
“Were we supposed to learn our lines for drama club until today?” Sohye whispered to him in the middle of the lesson. 

Jihoon shrugged. “I didn’t.” 

Sohye scrunched up her forehead in thought, but gave up trying to remember after a short while. It wasn’t like Mr. Hwang would get mad at them, they still had a long way to go until memorising lines would be crucial. Still, Jihoon preferred not to disappoint his drama teacher. Maybe he’d try to memorise a scene or two during music class the next lesson. Mr. Kim probably wouldn’t notice. 

Mr. Yoon let them out a few minutes early. He tended to do that, it was another factor that favoured his standing with his students. 

Sohye had a class on the other end of the building next, so she decided to get a headstart there, which left Jihoon to wander the halls to the music rooms by himself, like some kind of loser. Maybe, Jihoon thought, he was some kind of loser. In a movie, he wouldn’t be the lead. Maybe he’d be a casual friend of the lead, providing a sarcastic one-liner once in awhile, a Star Wars reference or two. He decided it was a very desirable part in a movie, definitely a fan-favourite. 

The sound of laughter shook him out of his thoughts. It wasn’t directed at him, and still quite some distance away, but he was a) paranoid to any teenagers laughing in his general proximity and b) had an strong feeling about who it belonged to. 

He couldn’t tell what it was Doyeon had laughed at, as she walked towards him with some of her friends from the cheer squad, and he probably wouldn’t find out. He was too busy trying not to stare at her and be weird, in the process of which he probably looked really weird. 

It was hard not to look at Doyeon, Jihoon knew. She was unbelievably pretty, enough to pull all looks on her when she entered a room, and despite her popularity she was still gentle and humble- at least that’s what Jihoon thought. He probably hadn’t actually spoken to her for more than a few seconds in the years they’d visited the same grade of this school. Maybe they would have had talked more, if Jihoon didn’t have the worst crush on her and lost all communication skills he only barely possessed in the first place when faced with her. 

Alas he was left not-staring at her as she walked towards and past him, stealing glances at her instead. In the process of it he was definitely not watching the rest of his surroundings as much as he expected because the next thing he knew he felt himself trip over thin air. 

He scrambled to not fall flat on his face in the middle of the hallway, even though he knew it probably wouldn’t do any good. 

What did do some good were the hands wrapping around his arms to keep him upright. “Careful.” The boy said. 

He was chuckling slightly, when he asked: “You alright?” 

Woojin, Jihoon thought, would be a great lead in a movie. 

“I’m fine.” Jihoon replied, sheepishly readjusting the strap of his backpack. “Thank you.” 

Woojin pulled his hands from Jihoon’s arm, as if he’d only now been convinced that Jihoon wouldn’t tip over the second he did so. Jihoon mulled over the fact that Woojin probably could have supported his whole body weight if he’d needed to. Jihoon should work out more. 

“Are you on the way to class?” Woojin spoke up after a moment. 

“Uhm, yeah!” Jihoon blurted. He hadn’t been prepared for conversation, he hadn’t even been aware him and Woojin were on a conversational basis. If Woojin _was_ the lead in a movie, Jihoon would definitely only have had a minor role. Student In Cafeteria #14. 

“Music with Mr. Kim, right?” Woojin asked on, and when Jihoon nodded, confusion no doubt evident in his face, he smiled. “I’m in that class too.” 

Jihoon was aware of that, even if he hadn’t been, Yoojung would have made sure of it, but it still came as a surprise to him, when the two of them headed off in the direction of the music rooms together after this. Woojin maintained a slightly awkward kind of smalltalk. Jihoon thought that that was nearly irritatingly polite. 

He dropped into the seat next to Yeonjung once they entered the room and Woojin had went to a group of his friends. 

“Are you gathering information for Yoojung’s big hopeless crush file?” She asked. 

“Yoojung doesn’t have a file for that.” Jihoon corrected her. “And I’m not gathering anything, I had no active part in this conversation, I quite literally stumbled into it.” 

Yeonjung laughed but seemed to believe him and went on to tell him about something Somi told her earlier when they had met in the halls, until Mr. Kim entered. 

“I’m late, and I have a reason.” He announced in lieu of a greeting. “I’m not gonna tell you the reason. Let’s pretend I took attendance, I’m assuming you’re all here because this class is fun and stuff.” He dropped a folder on the front desk and sat down with a huff. 

“So, nevermind the homework you had, we have more important things to do. I was informed yesterday that I have to give you guys a group assignment. Because ‘It’s on the curriculum, Jaehwan, and that’s something you have to follow’.” He put the last part in air quotes and adorned it with a poor imitation of the headmistress’ voice. “Well, you guys know how it goes, Mrs. Kwon loves me after all.” 

How Mrs. Kwon hadn’t killed Mr. Kim yet was honestly a miracle to Jihoon. 

“I have this assignment I stole off the internet here.” He tapped the folder. “And I divided you into pairs in alphabetical order. Changing partners is not permitted, you can work on this during class, I haven’t decided yet when it’s due, I’ll be here for questions.”

He then started reading out the pairs. Jihoon admired the way Mr. Kim never left any room for questions and still did the bare minimum for explaining anything ever. He was not a bad teacher, he just had a very student-like attitude to teaching. 

“Park Jihoon, Park Woojin.” Mr. Kim read out and held out a stack of paper to Jihoon in front of him. 

As he took them and got up to sit next to Woojin, he couldn’t help but think that he should tell Yoojung about this as soon as possible, but as much as Mr. Kim didn’t like the school’s regulations, texting in class was still not allowed. The fact that Woojin was right there next to him was also a problem. 

“It could just be me barely paying attention in this class the whole year, but have we covered this?” Woojin asked while thumbing through the worksheets. 

Jihoon vaguely remembered the subject from the very beginning of the semester. “I guess I have some notes on it at home somewhere.” He replied. “I can bring them tomorrow.” 

Woojin nodded and Jihoon feared that this would be the end of it and they were doomed to sit in awkward silence for the rest of the lesson. He wouldn’t actually know what to talk about anyways. Student In Cafeteria #14 wasn’t supposed to have any plot-relevant lines. 

“I like your laces.” Woojin spoke up against all odds. Jihoon just blinked at him. “They match your shirt.” Woojin added. Jihoon blinked some more. 

It took his brain precisely three more blinks to recalculate the situation. Apparently he was just promoted from an extra to a minor character. Minor characters could have lines in filler dialogue, he guessed. 

“Do you think it makes me look like a cartoon character?” He blurted and immediately wished he hadn’t. That wasn’t minor character dialogue, that was weird I’m-never-gonna-make-conversation-with-you-again dialogue. Yoojung was going to have his head. 

Instead of judgement or social homicide though, he only got a shrug. “Every outfit could make you look like a cartoon character, if someone drew it, I guess.” Woojin mused before picking up his pen and quickly scribbling on one of the worksheets. The result was a stickman, the only visible characteristics a scribbly red shirt and what Jihoon guessed were supposed to be red shoelaces. 

“There, you’re a cartoon character.” 

“I feel like this cartoon is going to flop.” Jihoon said with a grin. 

“Excuse you, this is just a sketch. A thumbnail.” Woojin replied with a mirroring grin. “Also I failed art class.” 

Somehow they managed to fill the rest of the lesson with no awkward silence, as well as with no actual work on their project. They would have to catch up in the next few lessons, but Jihoon didn’t really mind, and neither did Mr. Kim probably, so it wouldn’t be too grave. 

The whole thing had been so uneventfully pleasant, that he nearly forgot about it by the time Yoojung joined him for lunch, slightly out of breath and her hair a mess. 

“What happened to you?” He asked. 

“I was being nice.” She shrugged. That explained nothing to Jihoon, and he thought about inquiring more, but they were interrupted.

“Judging from experience I’m assuming you’re not talking about interesting things, so I’m here to fix that.” A voice from behind Jihoon announced. Hyungseob put down his tray with a clatter and sat down. 

He looked at them blankly for a few seconds before continuing: “I have nothing, actually.” 

“You never do.” Sohye rolled her eyes as she sat down next to him. “I have, though.” 

“I just met Mr. Hwang on the way here.” Sohye said and pointed at Jihoon: “We didn’t have anything to memorise, lucky for us.” 

 

III.

Yoojung liked their drama teacher. Mr. Hwang was serious enough to take the measures that made their productions a success, but laid-back enough to let them fool around with the dialogues, for example. Creative freedom and capability, he used to say, was a quality to encourage in adolescents. Yoojung thought he just found it funny to see them fuck around with classical pieces. 

“Anyways the important thing is we have a substitute for Jinsook now, in case Yeonjung can’t talk her back into it.” 

“I doubt she can.” Yoojung threw in. “Jinsook is more thickheaded than Yeonjung can be convincing.” 

“Maybe so. Anyways, Somi apparently asked Park Siyeon to help us out.” 

“She terrifies me.” Hyungseob spoke up. 

“She terrifies us all, Seobbie.” Jihoon gave back. “But if she’s gonna help us, we’ll have to deal with that.” 

They fell into a discussion about terrifying underclassmen after that and Yoojung couldn’t help but think her friends were ridiculous. Yoojung believed that people shouldn’t be scary to you until they gave you a reason for it. Or unless they were part of the cheer squad and always moved in colourful packs. That made Yoojung nervous. 

“Yoojung!” A voice called from behind her, interrupting her thought process. 

_Speak of the devil._ she thought as she turned around and saw Kim Doyeon break from that exact colourful pack Yoojung had been thinking about. But referring to Doyeon as the devil when she was quite literally skipping towards where Yoojung was sitting, a wide smile on her face, seemed ridiculous. Yoojung wondered if skipping was a cheerleader’s preferred mode of transportation. 

“I forgot to give this back to you earlier.” Doyeon announced when she was standing in front of their table. “Sorry.” She held Yoojung’s chapstick out to her. 

“Don’t worry about it!” Yoojung hurried to say. She could feel the eyes of all of Doyeon’s friends on them and the popularity and beauty they held was nearly as jarring as the curiosity in those of her own friends. 

Doyeon didn’t seem to mind any of that. Why would she? She was an all-powerful being, above any of it. 

Turning to the rest of the table, she chirped: “Hi!” 

A small chorus of greetings was the reply she got. Yoojung couldn’t help but chuckle at the overwhelmed look on Jihoon’s face and immediately he went to hit her underneath the table. 

“You all have theatre practice now, right?” Doyeon inquired. 

“Yeah!” Jihoon blurted, maybe a tad too loud and a tad too fast. 

“That’s cool, it’s a musical again this year, I heard? That’s so exciting, musicals are fun!” Doyeon blabbered on. It was nothing Yoojung expected to come out of the mouth of a picture perfect cliche cheerleader, but Doyeon seemed so genuinely happy about the prospect of a musical that Yoojung couldn’t help but feel giddy about their choice of play for this year too. 

“Doyeon, Jieqiong is stealing your food!” Someone called from where Doyeon had skipped over from. 

“Doyeon, Chaeyeon is a snitch!” Jieqiong herself added. 

“Okay, I’ll have to leave it seems. Good luck for practice!” Doyeon smiled. “Thanks again for the chapstick, Yoojung, you’re an angel!” 

And with that she went back to join her friends, walking normally this time. 

“Jihoon,” Hyungseob whisper-yelled. “Are you alright?” 

“Shut up.” Jihoon muttered. 

To Yoojung’s surprise, Hyungseob just grinned but said nothing more. She suspected that he was saving whatever he was about to say for a later moment, a more dramatic one. 

“So what are we actually doing with Mr. Hwang today?” He asked instead. “Do you think we’ll finally go through the songs once?” 

“I hope not.” Sohye whined. “That’s always so exhausting.” 

“It’s fun!” Hyungseob protested. 

“Mr. Hwang and Mr. Kim waste more than half of the time bickering anyways.” Jihoon added. 

“Yeah.” Sohye nodded. “That’s exhausting. Practices go smoother when Mr. Kim isn’t there.” 

Yoojung laughed. “When, realistically, was the last time a practice went smooth?” 

“Touché.” Sohye sighed and went on to stab her lunch with a fork. 

Yoojung had a feeling that practice that day wouldn’t be going smooth on the way to the auditorium already. That wasn’t going smooth at all. 

“Not to alarm any of you,” Yeonjung whispered urgently as she joined the little group in the hallways. “Specifically you, Yoojung, but Park Woojin is power-walking in our very direction.” 

“Wha-” Yoojung began to ask, but was cut off by Yeonjung, now way louder and much more cheerful, exclaiming: “Hey, Woojin. Hey, Mina!” 

“Hi!” Mina gave back with a wide smile. “I’m gonna do the talking since Woojin hasn’t said a full coherent sentence in his life, I don’t think, and I’m in a hurry. I still have to drive him home, like I’m some kind of babysitter, which I am _not_ for the record-” 

“You kind of are.” Woojin interrupted her. 

“Does this mean I can ground you? Because I’m going to, I’d love to do that.” 

“You can bench me, I guess.” Woojin shrugged. 

“Are you insane? The coach would kill me.” 

Yoojung didn’t think coach Kang had it in him to kill anyone. From what she had gathered about the soccer team, Mina, as the team’s manager, was in charge there in terms of organisation and discipline. Coach Kang just brought the soccer skill, the authority a club needed, and smiley encouragement. 

“Mina, weren’t you in a hurry?” Yeonjung reminded her. 

“None of you is doing any talking.” Jihoon added. It was clear in all of their faces that none of them knew what was going on. Yoojung couldn’t remember any of them every holding up a conversation with Woojin.

“Oh, right.” Woojin chuckled. He continued while seemingly looking for something in his pockets. “We didn’t really get anything done in music earlier, so…” He pulled a small piece of paper out of his jeans pockets and held it out to Jihoon. “You can text me whenever you find your notes and then we can see what we do with them.” 

“Okay, yeah, sounds good.” Jihoon gave back while slowly taking the paper. 

Before Woojin could say anything else, Mina made a grab for his arm and started pulling him in the opposite direction. “That was fun guys, should totally repeat that when there’s more time, have fun at practice, Goodbye!” 

Woojin tried to pry her hand off him while simultaneously turning around and shooting them all an apologetic smile and a wave. 

When they were out of sight, Hyungseob released an airy chuckle. “Cinematic parallels,” He said. “But, Yoojung, are you alright?” 

“I can’t believe Jihoon got Woojin’s number before you did.” Sohye threw in. 

“I can.” Hyungseob spoke up again. “Jihoon is cute and Yoojung has no game.” 

“Yeah, but neither has Jihoon and Yoojung is also cute.” 

“Fate plays in mysterious ways sometimes.” Hyungseob shrugged and started walking towards the auditorium again. 

“That’s so vague.” Yoojung finally said. She’d been quiet for the last 5 minutes. 

“I’m just saying, at the end of the day Jihoon got your crush’s number and you let Jihoon’s crush use your chapstick which means you basically indirectly kissed. Do with that information whatever you want.” 

“God, how old are you? We’re not in kindergarten anymore, Seob.” Jihoon rolled his eyes as all of them started following Hyungseob down the hall. 

“Mysterious ways, Jihoonie.” 

“Shut your mysterious mouth.” Sohye decided, and that was final. 

Mr. Hwang was in an exceptionally good mood. A possible reason could have been that there had been a run through of the songs _planned_ but it was rescheduled at the last minute, so Mr. Kim was not actually there. Another possible reason could be that they were ahead the very detailed practice plan Mr. Hwang had introduced in the beginning of the semester. Mr. Hwang was the type to be cheery about good organisation. 

“What do you guys think about some creative work today?” He asked as soon as everyone was seated in the auditorium. He was met with varying degrees of motivation in his students but deemed it enough, apparently, because he smiled and clapped once. “Alright, you know the drill, get into pairs and brainstorm about some scenes. It would be good if all of you would focus on the first act for now.” 

Naturally, Yoojung and Jihoon drifted off to a corner of the stage together, scripts in front of them on the ground, but not actually intending to do any work. They both sucked at brainstorming. The other pairs surely would have tons of wonderful ideas to make up for their lack of productivity. 

“It really is kind of weird.” Jihoon spoke up suddenly. 

“What is?” 

“That we both kind of had...moments with Doyeon and Woojin today.” 

Yoojung snorted. “ _Moments?_ ” 

Jihoon lightly shoved her arm. “You know what I mean.” 

“Yeah.” Yoojung nodded with a small smile. “What are the odds, huh?” 

Jihoon was about to reply, but they were cut off. “Mr. Park, Miss. Choi, I’m sure you’re having discussion very relevant to the play right now.” 

Mr. Hwang was standing directly above them. On a normal day, he would have given them a disappointed shake of his head, on a bad day he would have scolded them to focus. Luckily, this was good day and he just gave them a knowing smile and pointed to their scripts, before walking off. They got the hint and at least attempted to get something done for the duration of the afternoon. 

Only when they arrived at Jihoon’s house and Yoojung let herself drop onto the millions of pillows on his bed did they pick the subject up again. 

“What if Hyungseob is right about his mysterious ways bullshit?” Jihoon wondered out loud. 

“Hyungseob? Being right? In what world?” Yoojung joked, but still motioned for Jihoon to continue. “Please do elaborate.” 

“Well, what if our-” He put exaggerated air quotes this time “- _moments_ with Doyeon and Woojin were a sign. From the universe. Or god or some other higher being. Oprah or Carrie Fisher.” 

“A sign for what?” 

“I don’t know Oprah’s mind, Yoojung.” 

She rolled her eyes, before asking: “So what do we do with these mysterious signs?” 

“We should make a plan.” 

“Jihoon, I told you, your 5-year plan to make Doyeon fall in love with you wouldn’t have worked in sophomore year and it’s not working now.” 

“No, a different plan.” Jihoon shook his head as if he couldn’t believe that Yoojung wasn’t understanding him correctly. For all the time they spent together, they still hadn’t perfected mind-reading. 

Jihoon searched his backpack for something and soon after resurfaced with a sheet of paper and a glittery pen that Yoojung was pretty sure he’d stolen from Sohye. 

In rushed letters he put the very carefully chosen and original title “THE PLAN” in all capitals at the top of the paper and only grinned at Yoojung’s disapproving sigh. 

“So, we…” He wrote both of their names next to each other. “We’re friends.” 

“That is brand new information.” Yoojung deadpanned. 

“Shut up and listen. So we’re friends. And we have crushes.” He added Woojin’s and Doyeon’s names to the paper and connected them to their own in wiggly lines. “Which neither of us have ever acted on and never will because we’re socially awkward and kind of losers.” 

“Damn, sugar-coat a bit at least.” 

“We gave to face the facts here, Yoojung.” 

“The facts were faced, now what’s your genius plan?” 

While talking, Jihoon started doodling random things on the paper that Yoojung wasn’t sure were relevant to the plan. “Well, you had your little bonding moment with Doyeon today, over chapstick, and you did her a favour so basically she owes you.” He started. 

Yoojung interrupted him before he could go on, and she could feel the horror that had to be evident on her face. “I will not go up to her and say ‘You owe me for borrowing my chapstick that I offered to you, so go on a date with my best friend.’ That’s called prostitution, Jihoon.” 

“I wasn’t even finished! You would be a terrible pimp. What I was _actually_ about to say is that you could use that as a fun conversation starter and then use your superior social skills to become friends with her-” 

Yoojung held up a hand. “We established about two minutes ago that we’re both socially awkward.” She reminded him. 

“Yes. But we’re also actors so nobody will ever know.” 

“That’s not how it works, but alright, resume.” She had given up on trying to understand the lines Jihoon was drawing on the paper a good few minutes ago. 

“So you can get close to Doyeon.” He punctuated the sentence with another energetic glittery line. “And I’ll be more or less forced to talk to Woojin about this music assignment for the next few weeks.” Another line. “So we can get close to them and then kind of…” More squiggly lines. “Make them realize how cool it would be to date our respective best friend by osmosis, or something.” 

Yoojung thought Jihoon had lacked a bit in presentation and articulation, but she forgot to nag him about it over the prospect of what he was suggesting. “So you’re saying instead of approaching our own crush, which would never work because we’d get nervous, we approach each other’s crushes and play as each other’s wingmen?” She clarified. 

“Yeah!” 

“This…” Yoojung looked at the mess of glittering lines and doodles again. “This could actually work.” She decided. 

“I know!” Jihoon exclaimed again. He seemed genuinely excited. It kind of reminded Yoojung of the way Poe would run in small circles across the kitchen when he understood he would be fed soon. 

“And also,” He began to add, “We both share classes with them. It’ll be easy!” 

In a small corner of the paper that wasn’t filled yet he squeezed: _Music, Biology, Science, PE_. “We have Science and PE together as well, this is just perfect.” 

Yoojung thought that she should be amused by Jihoon’s excitement, but instead, his buzzing got to her and she couldn’t help but mirror his wide grin. 

“Let’s do this!” She exclaimed and held out a hand, not quite sure why. It felt like something to shake hands on. 

Jihoon didn’t question it, just enthusiastically took her hand and squeezed the living hell out of it in his excitement. 

They had a bulletproof, glittery plan, there was absolutely nothing that could go wrong.


	2. part ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i finally got around to finishing this!! 
> 
> this part is way longer and way gayer than pt i so cheers to that!!!

IV. 

Jihoon had made a lot of plans in his life. Most of them didn’t see the light of day and the ones that did mostly didn’t work out. The ones that did work out though, were glorious, and that’s what Jihoon focussed on. 

So yes, Jihoon was great at making plans. And yes, this one was one of his best. 

“We just gotta make a colourful chart and throw some smart words around and we’ll ace this.” He explained enthusiastically. Incidentally that was also how he pitched most of his plans to anyone they might concern. 

Woojin was in fact concerned by the on-going plan, but telling him would destroy the very point of elaborate planning, so Jihoon kept his mouth shut and his eyebrows raised as he waited for Woojin’s verdict on their presentation. 

“Isn’t that what all presentations for school are?” Woojin asked, and Jihoon nodded with a grin. 

“We’ll just do _more_ colourful charts and throw around _smarter_ words.” He chirped. 

Woojin chuckled lightly. “Sounds bulletproof.” 

“It is, it’s been my guideline for all of highschool.” 

“Bright colours and a lot of talking?” Woojin didn’t actually wait for confirmation from Jihoon before nodding. “Yeah, seems like you.” 

It was almost ridiculous, how well their plan was working. Last week, sitting in his bedroom with Yoojung, Jihoon had anticipated that it would take some work to break through Woojin’s _I’m The Most Popular Guy In School_ walls, but after only a few more music lessons and easy conversation instead of actual work, he found that he had been wrong. The anticipated walls were non-existent, Woojin hadn’t once looked at him weirdly upon initiating conversation or a peculiar comment he’d made just to test the waters. On the contrary, more often than not Woojin initiated conversation himself and the comments he slipped in were sometimes even weirder than what Jihoon had dared. 

It was easy, spending time with Woojin. Jihoon was more than glad - he wasn’t sure how he would’ve broken it to Yoojung that the boy of her dreams was a jerk. 

He was busy highlighting the third paragraph on the article he was reading, when Woojin’s phone started buzzing. 

It wouldn’t have bothered Jihoon if not for the fact that they were in the school’s library. He sent a quick look to the front desk over his shoulder and was delighted to not see the usual librarian sat there, a scary woman, about 500 years of bitterness in her, but instead someone who he guessed was a TA. The guy was currently trying to build a house out of returned books and didn’t seem to be aware of any of his surroundings. 

Jihoon was just about to go back to being unbothered, but Woojin’s scrunched up eyebrows as he looked at his phone (not buzzing anymore) told him that maybe he was moving too fast. 

“Everything okay?” He inquired. 

“It’s Mina.” Woojin gave back, as if that explained it. 

Jihoon could understand that Mina spamming one’s phone could make for bad news. Mina was terrifying, her cute ears and affinity for pink jumpers didn’t fool Jihoon. A few months back he had walked past the soccer field during practice and had heard her run fitness drills with the team from all across the field - he’d been cautious of her ever since. 

Woojin though, seemed generally pretty close with her, so Jihoon still thought he deserved a bit more of explanation. 

“Apparently she managed to get us a spot at a tournament in two months that we weren’t supposed to participate in.” Woojin huffed after he locked his phone again and buried it deep in his backpack. A smart move, Jihoon thought. “Mind you, we weren’t going because we didn’t qualify. We’re literally not good enough for this tournament. I have no idea how she talked us into this when the statistics are against us.” 

“You’re not that bad though?” Jihoon threw in. He made it sound like a question, because he knew nothing about soccer and had actually no idea how bad or well their team was doing. 

“Yeah, no, we’re decent.” Woojin explained. “This tournament is just crazy.” 

“But isn’t this a good thing then? Opportunities and Experience… or something?” Jihoon tried. 

Woojin puffed out his cheeks. Jihoon had the strange instinct to poke them. He didn’t. “I guess.” Woojin allowed. “But Mina _knows_ we’re not good enough for this, and we know too, so the next two months will be full of extra practice. And _physicals_.” His face twisted up in pain on the last word. 

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Jihoon started, putting the highlighter away. “But isn’t every part of actively playing in a soccer team _’physical’_?” 

“You’re not wrong.” Woojin chuckled. “Physicals are… gym days, I guess. Mina always makes work-out plans from hell, cross-fit, lifting and stuff… It’s terrible.” 

Jihoon lifted an eyebrow and slowly dragged his eyes from one of Woojin’s unfairly strong-looking arms to the other. He wasn’t exactly scrawny himself, but he had no doubt Woojin could throw him a good distance if he wanted to. He didn’t think Woojin wanted to but the possibility was certainly there. 

“So you’re trying to tell me you don’t like lifting things?” 

Woojin rolled his eyes again with a smile, crossing his arms. (The smile seemed nearly embarrassed and it nearly seemed like he was crossing his arms to hide them from Jihoon’s gaze, but that was just as unlikely as the blush that Jihoon thought he saw on Woojin’s cheeks for a second. The lighting in the library was weird.) 

“It’s not that I’m bad at it. It’s just boring.” He explained. 

“Yeah I wouldn’t have believed you if you said you were bad it, no offense.” Jihoon deadpanned. He wasn’t sure why Woojin would take offense in that. 

“None taken.” Woojin replied. The sound of his phone starting to buzz again and a suppressed groan as a reply to it interrupted their conversation. Jihoon sent a short glance to the article he had been reading and found that he had completely lost track. They could probably finish this in class. 

“If you need to leave…” He started, but Woojin waved him off. 

“Mina’s just getting a headstart on annoying me into physicals.” 

“Maybe you should get a headstart on physicals, then.” Jihoon shrugged. “To spite her.” 

Woojin thought for a second, then pointed a finger at him. “I like the way you think.” Jihoon grinned but before he could reply, Woojin added: “But you’re not getting rid of me right now, I’m not gonna sacrifice super interesting conversation about musical theory and your company for boring gym things and no company.” 

Jihoon fake-gasped. “Not even out of spite? I don’t know if I can stand for that.” 

“So you’d rather I leave you alone here with all of these articles to die? You wound me.” Woojin gave back in a tone that made it seem final and grabbed for a stack of papers. 

Jihoon laughed. “Next time we’ll just study in the gym.” 

“Now that’s next level.” 

Woojin didn’t seem to think Jihoon was serious about this. 

When he settled on the ground of the gym the week after that, next to some really colourful, nearly friendly looking weights, Woojin still didn’t seem entirely convinced that Jihoon was serious. 

“What’s your plan anyways?” He asked, tentatively playing with a loose thread on his sweatpants. 

“I yell information at you while you do jumping-jacks?” Jihoon suggested. 

“Terrifying mental image, kinda wanna try it. What else do you got?” 

“We don’t make any actual progress, I just finish transferring everything we have so far onto flashcards and you don’t mind the project and… do your thing.” He vaguely gestured towards the bright neon weights. 

“If we don’t make any actual progress in that option, why would you be here?” 

“Moral support? I could yell at you a bit for motivation if it would help?” 

“Too kind of you.” Woojin chuckled. “A lot of your suggestions involve yelling at me, by the way.” 

“If I have learned one thing about life in my 18 years on this earth it’s that a lot of stuff works better with yelling.” Jihoon nodded. 

“Wise words.” 

Both of them were quiet for a few seconds while Jihoon got out their notes and Woojin seemed to be coming to terms with the fact that this was really happening. “Alright.” He said suddenly and clapped his hands once. “I guess we have flashcards and weights to tend to.” 

The look Woojin sent the aforementioned weights was nearly desperate. “Maybe we can switch at some point.” 

“Yeah, that’s a no.” Jihoon decided with a vehement shake of his head. 

“Guessed so.” 

“Just get to work, we’ll be out of here in no time!” 

Jihoon really didn’t know what Woojin was complaining so much about. When Jihoon had finally coaxed him to actually start training, he did so with no apparent complications. Not that Jihoon counted, he was definitely very invested in flashcards, but he could swear Woojin didn’t even break a light sweat before the 23rd time he lifted the neon weights. 

After about thirty minutes using various options in their school’s adjacent gym for what they were presumably made for - Jihoon didn’t understand most of them and was too afraid to ask at this point- Woojin grabbed a towel and dropped down on the floor next to him. 

“You know,” His voice sounded a bit muffled from under the towel where he was drying his hair. “This really is more fun when you’re here.” 

“I didn’t even yell at you, though.” Jihoon reminded him. 

“Yeah, that’s true.” Woojin allowed. “It’s just fun to hang out with you. You’re pretty cool.” 

Jihoon pointedly looked away from Woojin flashing him a bright smile from under his towel and to the bright purple marker in his hand. “You’re not bad yourself.” 

The air in the relatively small room had gotten really stuffy, he realized. Or maybe the heater was broken, in any case, it was way too warm. 

Two weeks later, Jihoon was considering sending a formal complaint to the janitor about the temperature in the gym. This couldn’t be a healthy environment to do sports in, he thought, as he slammed his textbook shut. 

“I can’t focus.” Jihoon announced. 

To be completely honest, they hadn’t actually gotten any work for the project done anyways, in the few times they had attempted it while here, but today was a new peak of unproductivity. 

“That’s probably because this place is not meant for studying. Glad you caught up, finally, does this mean we can leave?” Woojin walked over to him and dropped to the ground, before grabbing the hem of his shirt and pulling it up to wipe some sweat from his forehead. 

Logically, Jihoon knew that what he should be doing, a normal, Jihoon-like reaction, was to roll his eyes, tell Woojin that towels were a thing that existed and bring the conversation back to its original topic with a witty one-liner. 

Realistically he should have been aware of and well prepared for the fact that this was not Woojin’s first time in a gym and that whatever laid underneath oversized muscle shirts and hoodies would match his ridiculously toned arms. 

Ultimately what he did, didn’t match logic nor reality, nor what Hyungseob had oftentimes referred to as ‘The Biggest Loss The Gay Community Ever Suffered’ after he had asked and Jihoon had assured him that no, he was pretty sure he was straight. 

So maybe Jihoon had known that objectively, Woojin was attractive, and maybe the very point of his elaborate plan was to not be awkward and risk their goal, and maybe this shouldn’t even get to him, but right now he was very much caught off-guard by, very much staring at and very much not indifferent about Woojin’s exposed torso and it was very much making this situation awkward. 

Jihoon suddenly had a vision of his near future, having to tell Yoojung about how exactly he blew their chances. “Yeah so, funny story actually, I totally destroyed any possibility of Woojin ever talking to either of us again, because I got caught up checking him out in the middle of a conversation and forgot to answer- Yes, yes, I was surprised too-...” 

All of this happened in the matter of a few seconds before Woojin let his shirt drop again and lifted his eyebrows expectantly. 

“Uhm.” Jihoon uttered intelligently. 

Woojin, bless his soul, was apparently mistaking his stalling for uncertainty about his answer and provided: “We’re not doing that bad with covering everything for this project, right? We can just call it quits for today and work more on it next time. Not here, preferably.” 

Jihoon nodded, glad for the opportunity to gather his thoughts. “Definitely.” He agreed. 

“Cool.” Woojin grinned. “If you’re free on Saturday, we can meet up at my place?” 

“Definitely.” Jihoon repeated and Woojin’s grin widened. 

The gym was infinitely warm and Woojin’s smile was infinitely bright and Jihoon, Jihoon felt infinitely strange. 

About an hour later, when he was sitting on his bed after dinner and talking to Yoojung on the phone, he still felt strange. 

“...So like, I can give you a full report on Doyeon’s opinion on The Lion King after Saturday.” Yoojung excitedly finished her rambling about the movie night she and Doyeon were having. 

“Brilliant.” Jihoon gave back, but it lacked the enthusiasm the word suggested. 

Yoojung seemed to have noticed too. “You alright?” 

“Uh…” 

Logically, Yoojung was his best friend and he should just tell her. She could always tell when he was caught up in his head. It wasn’t even like whatever this was was a big deal. Just a fleeting moment of doubt, some questions Jihoon didn’t know how to answer. 

Realistically he knew that Yoojung would never judge him, not over something like this, not even if it was Woojin. She was his best friend before anything. 

Ultimately, he knew that there was no reason not to tell her. But what he did tell her was: “I just kind of have a headache.” 

“Poor baby.” Yoojung cooed on the other end, but Jihoon knew she was probably really pitying him. He kind of felt bad for making her worry when nothing was actually wrong. 

(And nothing _was_ wrong, he told himself.) 

“Make sure to sleep early.” Yoojung continued. “You can’t leave me alone at school tomorrow, I need you in PE.” 

“Don’t worry, I’ll be there.” Jihoon chuckled. 

They ended the call soon after that, Jihoon had given Yoojung a very, _very_ brief synopsis of what happened earlier and had claimed his head had started to hurt more. 

His head didn’t hurt, but he was tired of overthinking, so he still went to bed way earlier than usual. It kind of made him feel better about lying to Yoojung. 

Friday morning went by in a blur, and before he knew it, he was trotting through the doors to where the rest of his PE class was assembled on the soccer field. Not many of them were there yet, and those who were weren’t even thinking about doing any sports yet. Jihoon let himself drop down to where Yoojung was sunbathing on the grass.  
“How’s your head?” She asked. 

“Um. Better.” Jihoon hurried to say. 

“Nice.” Yoojung smiled. She looked like she was going to say something else, but they were interrupted. 

“It’s too hot.” Doyeon announced as she sat down on Yoojung’s other side. 

“Oh, do you want me to leave?” Yoojung grinned up at her. It elicited a laugh from Doyeon and she went to hit Yoojung’s shoulder lightly. 

Logically, Jihoon should have gone through the usual motions, tense up and feel his insides turn to mush as well as his ability to articulate words, as soon as Doyeon showed up. He should have spent the next few minutes caught up in the fact that Doyeon’s laugh was a sound that could make flowers grow. 

Realistically he had always known how ridiculously cliche it was when it happened. Sometimes it had felt to him like his brain was just recalling the patterns engrained in it from countless rom-coms he had watched. Sometimes when he was confronted about his crush it was more like being confronted with someone else’s romantic feelings, like he was feeling all of it through a screen. Maybe the screen was broken right now. 

Ultimately he didn’t dwell on any of it, because an elbow in his side distracted him very effectively. 

“How do you feel about Christmas cookies in August?” Woojin asked. 

“In general, or…?” 

“My sister was bored last night, and apparently her best idea was to rope me into baking when I came home.” Woojin explained. “We have so many cookies at home now.” 

“Well in that case, and in general too, I’m always up for Christmas cookies.” 

“Cool.” Woojin smiled. “Some of them are Star Wars themed.” 

Jihoon blinked at him for a few seconds. “That,” He started. “Might be the best thing you ever said to me.” 

“Did you know I convinced Yoojung to name her puppy Poe?” He added after a short pause. 

“That might be the best thing you ever said to me.” Woojin imitated Jihoon’s exact tone from a few seconds ago. “My sister’s bunny is called Yoda.” 

“Amazing.” Jihoon laughed. 

He turned to Yoojung, seeing as the conversation was about _her_ dog, this was the perfect opportunity to bring their plan to the next step, wasn’t it? But he found that Yoojung hadn’t been paying attention to them one bit, had probably not even looked up to see Woojin joining them on their spot in the grass. 

Instead, she was talking about something with Doyeon, who had taken to braiding a few strands of Yoojung’s hair aimlessly. 

Maybe the next step of their plan could wait, Jihoon thought as he smiled and turned back to Woojin. For the rest of the PE lesson he didn’t think about broken screens and steps again. 

 

V. 

Yoojung had always preferred Disney movies over rom-coms or Hollywood blockbusters. Disney movies, she thought, at least didn’t lie about being unrealistic. She would take two Dalmatians falling in love over Jennifer Aniston falling in love with the next random white dude anytime. 

“Would you laugh at me if I tell you I have never managed to watch this movie without crying?” Doyeon chirped as she settled next to Yoojung on the mountain of pillows they had arranged on the bed. 

“I wouldn’t have any room to, neither have I.” Yoojung gave back. “I have tissues ready!” 

“Good thinking.” Doyeon shot her finger guns, then leaned forward to grab the bowl of popcorn they had prepared. Yoojung thought that nobody should be able to pull off finger guns without being judged, but she also thought that Doyeon could probably pull everything off without being judged, if she wanted to. 

The first few notes of ‘The Circle Of Life’ started playing and Yoojung immediately found herself smiling and humming along. _Music_ in Disney movies was also a huge asset they had over other movies. 

It took her a few moments to realize that she was not the only one who seemed to think so. Turning to Doyeon, she found the other one already smiling back at her, softly mouthing the lyrics while animated animals were filling the screen. 

It took the two of them approximately 5 more seconds to launch into a full-on and full-volume duet version of the song, theatrically gesturing. The popcorn bowl nearly tipped off the mattress at one point but they only paused their singing for a short shriek of giggles before saving their food and continuing. 

Once they had calmed down and were able to focus back on the movie, Yoojung had to think back to the first time she had really talked to Doyeon. She had realized how much she liked the other girl’s laugh, how natural it looked on her face, and now she realized that nothing much had changed. 

And yet, Yoojung felt like a lot had changed. 

A few weeks ago, Doyeon had been nothing more but a picture painted in vivid colours by mostly Jihoon’s words. Now, like Yoojung was living in some high school version of Night At The Museum, the painting had become real and had become impossibly more vibrant with it. Doyeon wasn’t “Jihoon’s crush” anymore, as she was sitting beside Yoojung in ridiculously patterned pyjamas, clinging to the bowl of popcorn for dear life as if they were watching a thriller. 

The most important was, that Doyeon hadn’t ever given Yoojung the feeling that it was supposed to be any different. From the first day on, she had made her feel comfortable, had been nice and welcoming in her very own warm and quirky way, as if Yoojung had always had a spot in her life that was reserved just for her. 

“Noooo…” A silent whine ripped Yoojung out of her thoughts. On the screen, Simba was just telling Mufasa that he needed to get up, that they needed to go home- Yoojung had been too distracted to get emotional. 

Doyeon though, had not, and had somewhere along the line inched closer to Yoojung. Now, she was turning to hide her face in Yoojung’s shoulder. 

“Why did we decide to watch this again?” She mumbled. 

“Because it’s the best movie ever made?” Yoojung tried with a slight chuckle making its way into her voice. 

Doyeon lifted her head to glare at her momentarily. “You said you wouldn’t laugh!” 

“I’m sorry!” Yoojung hurried to say, the smile still very much on her face. “You’re just- It’s cute.” 

Stuttering and blushing, Yoojung used to very strongly believe to be things of fiction. She might have oftentimes been too awkward to have an actual conversation with Woojin in biology, but never had she stuttered or blushed in those situations. In Hollywood movies, people stuttered and blushed because of their crushes, but Hollywood movies were unrealistic, weren't they? 

This right now was very much a real situation, and she was very much not talking to Woojin. 

So why could she feel her cheeks growing warmer? 

“You think it’s cute when I suffer?” Doyeon was very obviously joking, but Yoojung still faltered with her reply. 

“No! Of course- Of course not, I just- I mean-” 

Doyeon laughed. “ _You’re_ cute.” She decided, then settled her head back on Yoojung’s shoulder and her attention back on the movie. 

It was about 2 hours later, when they had long abandoned the movie and the popcorn and were now just laying around talking about everything and nothing, that Yoojung’s phone chimed. 

She still had not wrapped her head around the reality of the evening, about her rom-com worthy flustered behaviour earlier. In fact she had by that point convinced herself that it had either not happened at all, or that her and Doyeon had at some point entered a bubble of some kind of an alternate universe. Her phone burst the bubble, reminded her that this was very much real. 

 

 **Jihoonie:** how’s movie night going? ^^ 

**Jihoonie:** also jsyk i don’t need you anymore, i’ve finally found someone who knows that tfa is the best star wars movie 

 

“Oh wow, what did that text say? You look ready for murder.” Doyeon suddenly spoke up. “Or maybe not murder. You just don’t look very amused.” 

“I’m not.” Yoojung confirmed with a short glare at Jihoon’s text. “Hey?” She said then, looking at Doyeon over her phone. “What’s your favourite Star Wars movie?” 

Doyeon looked in deep thought. “I like all of them, but… Empire Strikes Back probably? I liked the Ewoks. And Han’s and Leia’s plot.” 

Yoojung grinned at her widely. “You get it!” 

“Episode VII had Daisy Ridley though, that should definitely be taken into consideration.” 

Yoojung narrowed her eyes for a second at Doyeon’s unsure smile. “Wrong answer?” Doyeon inquired. 

“You said the right thing first, so I’ll let it slide.” 

“Thank god.” Doyeon smiled. 

 

 **Yoojung:** movie night is going great because i’m spending it with an intellectual who has RIGHT OPINIONS :) 

 

“Why did you ask?” 

“Me and Jihoon have an on-going discussion about this.” Yoojung explained. “Ever since we went to see Episode VII, Jihoon has been insufferable. ‘It had everything you could ask for in a Star Wars movie, Yoojung. You’re just too attached to the space teddy bears, Yoojung!’” 

“I swear I had the same discussion with my friends after we went. But honestly, I couldn't really argue against Woojin back then. Sometimes people fall in love with John Boyega and the character he’s playing within the duration of one movie and there’s nothing you can do about it.” Doyeon shrugged. 

Yoojung thought back to the evening after her and Jihoon had left the cinema. _”Just the potential Finn’s character development had makes this the best movie I ever watched. End of discussion, John Boyega won.”_

“You know what? I guess the same goes for Jihoon.” 

“Well can you blame them?” 

“No, but I’m not gonna tell him that.” 

“Good decision.” Doyeon laughed. 

Jihoon texted Yoojung a brief update about studying at Woojin’s place -there had not been a lot of studying but a lot of cookies and discussions about Star Wars, apparently- before Yoojung put her phone to the side again. 

“Yoojung.” Doyeon started, but was cut off by a yawn. It had gotten pretty late, Yoojung realized. “Tell me about your play.” 

“My play? Why?” She wasn’t quite sure that she had heard correctly. 

“I wanna hear about it!” Doyeon looked at her with a sleepy smile. “It sounds really interesting and I always wondered what it’s like backstage.” 

“It’s- It’s nothing special, really. I mean, we’re just a high school ensemble and-” 

Doyeon shushed her. “I still wanna hear about it. Come here-” She patted the mattress directly next to where she was laying. “And tell me about your thoughts about casting and how your practices are going and whatever else is important.” 

Yoojung thought that Doyeon seemed really genuinely interested and excited about this. She also thought that there was a slight warmth creeping into her own cheeks again, as she sighed and shuffled closer to lay down next to Doyeon. 

She didn’t know how long she talked for, or what time it was by the time she realized that Doyeon’s eyes were drooping close. She just knew that the warmth on her face and the warmth in her chest seemed to have settled there for good, and she realized that this was very much real. Not a scene in a movie, but real. 

And when Doyeon’s breath evened out and Yoojung’s own eyes fell shut, she thought that it was a nice reality. 

Reality went back to being a fleeting, hard-to-grasp concept again as soon as soft barking outside of her bedroom door woke her up. 

Yoojung realized multiple things in the few seconds she took blinking against the light filtering through her window. 

One, Poe was way too early to be demanding food, it couldn’t have been more than an hour since her mother fed him. Yoojung found that deeply relatable. 

Two, the weather outside seemed to be that syrupy lemonade and lollipops kind of August day, golden rays of sunlight were streaming in, small specs of dust floating around. 

Three, getting up from her bed and to the door would take ages. She and Doyeon were completely tangled up in blankets and pillows and each other and Yoojung for one was not gifted with any kind of motoric coordination. 

Four, Yoojung had a problem. 

The problem was not disentangling herself from the bed, getting up and feeding her dog. It was not bearing a ridiculously hot summer day and starting it with a morning earlier than it could have been. 

The problem was the feeling of warmth, a cribbly, fluttering kind of flame, that settled in her stomach and leapt up into her heart now that she blinked up at Doyeon. 

The light from the window, specs of syrup and summer and gold, was falling on Doyeon’s face, her lashes were casting delicate shadows on her cheekbones. A strand of her hair had come loose from her ponytail and fell over her forehead softly. As Poe kept his demands up outside, Doyeon’s nose scrunched up as a first sign of waking up, followed by her eyes slowly opening and immediately closing again at the bright sunlight. 

She brought a hand up to her face to shield it and finally turned to Yoojung with a sleepy smile. “Good morning!” She said, her voice small and unsteady with sleep. 

And Yoojung had a problem. 

Now the thing was, Yoojung usually didn’t dwell on problems. Her mother and Jihoon and her teachers had oftentimes noted, praised her even, for her ability to quickly find solutions, or simply for her affinity to optimism. Jihoon actually tended go call it blissful ignorance, gifted to her as a basic character trait. 

Yoojung tended to not have problems for longer than necessary. She’d either solve them or decide they weren’t problems. 

With this particular difficulty life had thrown at her, she didn’t quite know how to use either of her techniques. 

The circumstances didn’t give her the chance to think of an immediate solution, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to decide she didn’t need one. 

Not when Doyeon picked Poe up from the ground with a wide smile as soon as they opened the door. 

Not when Doyeon sleepily grinned at her over a cup of strawberry tea. 

Not when Doyeon wrapped her in a hug a little while later, her voice directly next to Yoojung’s ear saying how much fun she had, how happy she was that Yoojung invited her, that they should definitely do that again. 

You couldn’t trivialise the fact that you had developed a crush on the girl your best friend liked, Yoojung realized after about 20 minutes of pacing around the kitchen after Doyeon had left. 

It wasn’t an easy problem to solve. 

She didn’t have any issue with _liking_ Doyeon, as in liking a girl. She had never really focussed on any labels, had told herself to just go with what life threw at her. 

And what she had believed life to be throwing at her had been Park Woojin, as picture perfect as out of her league.

But what life was actually throwing at her now was Kim Doyeon, all warmth and and smiles and butterflies in Yoojung’s stomach and not as out of her league as she would have believed to be and that precisely was the issue. 

She liked _Doyeon_. 

With a huff Yoojung collapsed onto the couch. Poe jumped up too and curled up in her lap. 

“How did this happen, huh?” Yoojung muttered, while she started absentmindedly carting her fingers through the Westie’s fur. 

She knew exactly how it happened. It happened because Doyeon was bright, was beautiful, was _everything_ and all of it Yoojung had not expected. She had expected to do this and help Jihoon, had hoped for a friendship to come of it, had believed Woojin was the one these thoughts should have been for - and now she was faced with the fact of disappointing each one of these outlooks. 

She didn’t know how to talk about this to Jihoon.

She couldn’t expect Doyeon to like her back, not in this way, not how Yoojung liked her. 

She couldn’t keep telling herself whatever she had believed Woojin to be was the position he was meant to have in her life. 

She spent the rest of her weekend dwelling, spent a good chunk of it panicking and another one trying desperately to tell herself if would be okay. Her mother asked if she was doing alright, if Jihoon noticed any difference in their text conversations he didn’t mention it. 

Yoojung was starting to believe that this was just the way her life was going to be now. Maybe, she was hoping that this would go as quickly as it had come. 

But after third period, when she was standing at her locker and getting her science text book, she lost hope. 

“Hey there!” Doyeon chirped, leaning against the locker next to Yoojung’s. “I walked past the science classroom and it looked like Miss Im was setting up some sort of experiment. Ready to blow something up?” 

“I’d prefer not to, for the sake of the class and my grades and Miss Im’s nerves.” Yoojung replied with a smile. She thought her hand was slightly shaking when she closed her locker. This was ridiculous. 

“Don’t worry, I can help you to not cause an explosion!” Doyeon assured and went to wrap a hand around Yoojung’s elbow. “Let’s go!” 

Yoojung had never particularly liked science class, but Doyeon’s enthusiasm was downright contagious. 

On their way to the science classrooms, they passed a small patch of green in the school’s courtyard, filled with students who were either skipping classes or had them off regularly. Jihoon, Yoojung remembered when she heard the familiar voice call her name, had a free period regularly right now. 

She had avoided him this morning, and she felt terrible for it. But when she thought he was going to come up to her now and confront her about it, she found him doing nothing of the sort. Jihoon was sitting on a bench, Woojin’s legs were resting on his lap. Judging from the notes and textbooks lying on Woojin’s stomach and the ground around them, Yoojung guessed they were still more or less working on their music assignment. 

Doyeon hadn’t realized Yoojung’s attention being elsewhere, she was still pulling her towards the science classrooms. It didn’t seem to be a problem, because Jihoon didn’t seem to expect Yoojung to come over. He just lifted up his phone for her to see and pointed at it. _Look at your phone._

As soon as she was seated besides Doyeon in Miss Im’s classroom, she pulled out her phone. 

 

 **Jihoonie:** we need to talk

 **Jihoonie:** meet me outside for lunch? 

 

“Really?” Yoojung huffed when she let her backback drop to the ground next to Jihoon and herself right after it. “‘We need to talk’ is the most stressful thing anyone can text you in the middle of class.” 

“I know” Jihoon said, but he didn’t seem to mind the stress Yoojung had went through in science class. It was his luck that she didn’t end up actually blowing up the experiment because of it. 

“So what do we need to talk about? It better be serious.” 

“It is.” 

“That’s not calming in any way.” 

Jihoon let out a long breath as if to collect himself and Yoojung wondered just how serious this actually was. Her mind momentarily flickered to her own important talk she should have with Jihoon but she quickly dropped the thought. Something was already bothering him, it seemed, she didn’t need to potentially make it worse. 

“I don’t think we should be calm about this.” Jihoon finally said. “It seems like kind of a big deal.” 

“What’s up? Did something happen?” 

“You could say that, I guess.” 

Yoojung wanted to tell him to get to the point and stop being vague, but he seemed to be really caught up with this, unsure about himself in a way that Yoojung hadn’t seen before. 

“You know that thing that Hyungseob sometimes says?” Jihoon spoke up after a few more seconds of silence. 

“Hyungseob says a lot of things.” Yoojung carefully replied. She felt like if she said the wrong thing, this conversation would go into an entirely wrong direction and it was entirely new to her. She felt like Jihoon felt so too. He huffed out a small humourless laugh in agreement and then shook his head. 

“Yeah, you’re right, I’m just-” He huffed again. “I really don’t know how to start.” 

“It’s okay” Yoojung assured him. “Take your time.” 

“I shouldn’t need so much time, I’ve been thinking about this for days now.” The frustration evident on Jihoon’s face could be amusing, but Yoojung couldn’t quite bring herself to a smile or a joking reply. 

“Well, you did say it was kind of a big deal.” She reminded him. 

“Yeah I said that.” Jihoon was obviously still deep in thought so Yoojung stayed quiet after that and waited for him to continue. 

The anxiety radiating off of him made her nervous in turn. They usually didn’t do being nervous around each other, and never had. 

“I’ll just- I’ll just get it out. Like a bandaid?” Jihoon laughed shakily. “Don’t interrupt me, please, I don’t think I can start over.” 

He waited for Yoojung’s quick nod, before taking a last deep breath and with the exhale, he spilled his heart. 

“So this plan of ours, it kind of didn’t work. I mean it did, is working out, maybe, possibly. I don’t know to be honest. I’ve been distracted by- by a lot of things. A lot of thoughts. Uhm. So… You know how Hyungseob has this running gag about me not being- no actually this is a terrible way to say this. I’m- I mean-...” He got caught up in his own stuttering momentarily. Yoojung fought the impulse to wrap him in a tight hug. Jihoon didn’t do stuttering. 

“Okay. So… you like Woojin.” Jihoon tried again and something in Yoojung’s chest tensed up. But this was so obviously not the right moment to tell him. “Everyone knows that. I mean, not everyone, obviously but _I_ know that and honestly… I should be getting the worst best friend of the year award, probably, and I want you to know that I don’t want anything to be in between us, especially not this. I just feel like you should know this, I don’t want us to fight. I’d totally understand if you’d be mad though, not-” 

He cut himself off, and Yoojung was glad, because otherwise she would have despite her promise. She couldn’t imagine anything that would be able to get in between them. 

“Stop rambling.” Jihoon muttered to himself as he looked down for a second. Another inhale. And exhale. 

Then he looked right up at Yoojung and said, with a voice so stable that it might have fooled anyone who wasn't her into forgetting his nervousness from only a second ago: “I realized that I like boys, apparently. And Woojin made me realize that.” 

The facade broke as soon as he let his head drop again. “I- I don’t know how this happened, but it did and I realized last weekend when we were studying at his place and I’ve been thinking about this the entire time now. I don’t know, I’m- I’m sorry.” 

He was quiet after that, apparently having said anything he’d wanted to get off his chest. 

Somehow, ironically, in a way that only something out of Jihoon’s mouth could have, he also managed to lift a similar weight off Yoojung’s chest. 

And the sudden lightness made her laugh. 

The nervous flickering in Jihoon’s eyes mixed with that of confusion as he looked back up at her. “Wh- Why are you-...” 

Yoojung gestured for him to come closer with a smile. “Come here, you dramatic idiot.” 

She was in no place to call him that, she knew, since she went through the exact same, mirrored thought process in the last few days, but Jihoon was only about to know that now. He couldn’t judge her for her use of insulting pet names just yet. 

“I’m not mad at you.” Yoojung said into Jihoon’s hair as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m actually really glad you said this first.” 

“First?” Jihoon repeated, voice muffled from the fabric of Yoojung’s shirt. “What do you mean?” 

“I mean that I feel the same.” 

Jihoon leaned back to look at her, an eyebrow raised. “You realized you like boys because of Woojin?” 

Yoojung huffed out a laugh. “No, dummy. I realized for sure that I like girls. Because of Doyeon.” 

It took Jihoon only a second more before Yoojung could see the pieces slotting together in his head. And then he was smiling and then he was laughing and then Yoojung was laughing as well and somewhere along the line they fell down onto the grass and laughed and felt like the world had been lifted off their shoulders and everything was right. 

“We’re kind of stupid.” Jihoon said finally. 

“Yeah.” Yoojung agreed. “We’re also kind of lucky.” 

“Yeah.” Jihoon agreed. “And kind of gay, huh?” 

Yoojung laughed. “Yeah.” She said. And it felt better than she’d expected. 

With this out of the way, Yoojung found that going about her day was suddenly that much easier. Going about her entire week was easier, in fact. 

It was easy when Hyungseob asked to join her walk Poe on Tuesday and Yoojung just laughed off his comments after they ran into Woojin while walking through the street he and Hyungseob lived in. 

It was easy when she woke up on Wednesday, as late as always, to the good morning text from Doyeon she’d grown used to over the last few weeks. 

It was easy when Jihoon told her on Thursday that he and Woojin had aced their assignment. 

On Friday, she nearly started to believe that her week had been going _too_ well. But if Yoojung was stuck in a positive feedback loop, she wouldn't complain either.

“Hey there!” Doyeon chirped as she dropped into her seat next to Yoojung in Miss Im’s classroom. It was astounding how her mere presence could somehow make the room seem like a desirable place to be. Never in her life had Yoojung thought she would look forward to science class, but here she was. 

“Any plans for the weekend?” Doyeon asked. 

“Drama club things mostly. Mr. Hwang is making me put up all the posters around school tonight.” Yoojung sighed. 

“Alone?” 

“Technically Jihoon is also supposed to help but he’s ditching me.” 

When Mr. Hwang had told the two of them to take on the honourable task, it had actually been right after Jihoon had told her that he had agreed to some late-night soccer practice with Woojin on Friday night. All his assurances of ‘I really don’t want you to do this alone’ and ‘I’m not even any good at soccer’ fell upon deaf ears, as Yoojung more or less forced him to leave the work to her. 

“Huh, bummer.” Doyeon blew out her cheeks. “I was gonna ask you to hang out with me.” 

“Yeah, bummer.” Yoojung agreed. She thought that would be that, but suddenly, Doyeon’s face lit up in a smile. 

“I could help you, since Jihoon ditched you!” 

“You really don’t have to.” Yoojung hurried to say. “I’ll be alright-” 

“It’s a win-win situation, the work will get done way faster and we can hang out. End of discussion, I won.” Doyeon grinned, as Miss Im walked in to start her lesson, killing any last attempt that Yoojung could have made for her case. 

“Meet me in the auditorium at 7.” She sighed, but not without a smile on her face. 

***

“How many more posters are there?” Doyeon asked, with slight apprehension in her voice as if she wasn’t really sure she wanted to know. 

They were on yet another trip back to the auditorium, where Mr. Hwang had stored several boxes full of posters for their play. Every time they thought they’d gotten enough of them the school building seemed to grow ten times and they’d have to go back to get another stack. 

“We’re through about… half of them.” Yoojung let her know with a careful glance to the contents of the box. 

With a groan, Doyeon dropped down on one of the auditorium’s cushioned seats. “We’re taking a break.” She decided. 

That was more than fine with Yoojung. She sat down in the seat next to Doyeon with a small huff and briefly considered texting Jihoon, cursing him out for leaving the work to her, but thought better of it. Jihoon would probably not be looking at his phone until later anyways, and it would just take away a lot of the drama. She had been the one to tell him to leave it to her, after all.

“I’m glad I’m here to help you, you know.” Doyeon spoke up after a short while. “You would have _died_ on your own.” 

“Wouldn’t have been a nice way to die.” Yoojung agreed. “Left alone by all my loved ones, buried under a mountain of drama club posters.” She turned to look at Doyeon. “I’m glad you’re here to help me too.” 

The wide smile she got as a reply shouldn’t have taken her as off-guard as it did. But it only took that split second of Doyeon’s face lighting up to make heat rise to her face. It was magical, when Doyeon smiled, and it never lost its magic even when she did it again, and again and again and Yoojung would ask her to do it that much more, if she had the guts to. If she wasn’t entirely charmed into silence every time, without fail. Again and again and again. 

Right now was no different, and yet it was something entirely else. 

Before, Yoojung had known about the endless circle of smiles and stunned silences she was a protagonist in, had known that her heart would eventually pick back up the beat it was skipping, and that she’d do it all again with the next smile. Before, she had been okay with that. She was okay to spend eternity like that, and she had all the time in the world to spare.

But right now, she was nearly painfully aware of this circle. She was painfully aware of her heart telling her to do something, do anything. It felt like her time was running out, suddenly, and it was a problem, and she needed to solve it. 

She was good at solving problems. But her heart was yelling and skipping and Doyeon was still smiling and there was only one real solution, wasn’t there? 

Yoojung moved without thinking, her heart taking action more than her brain did. She leaned in suddenly, but apprehensively, slowly enough that she could see the smile fall from Doyeon’s lips and her eyes widen. 

And that was what it took to stop the stupor her heart had yelled itself in. It turned very very still, very very quickly. 

“I’m sorry.” Yoojung whispered, breathless, even if she didn’t quite know herself why she was. She leaned back into her seat, wished she could disappear into the soft cushions. 

So this was how her and Jihoon’s plan ultimately failed, she thought. 

It was utterly quiet and Yoojung couldn’t bring herself to look at Doyeon.

Doyeon shifted in her seat and Yoojung couldn’t bring herself to look at her.

“You don’t have to be sorry.” Doyeon whispered back and Yoojung couldn’t bring herself to look at her. 

She felt fingers on her cheek and her head shot up and she was suddenly looking at Doyeon and Doyeon was smiling and her face was closer than before and Yoojung’s heart went right back into screaming. 

There were stars in Doyeon’s eyes when she smiled, and there were stars in Yoojung’s heart when Doyeon pressed her lips to hers, and there were stars in the air when they laughed softly afterwards. 

“You just caught me off-guard, is all.” Doyeon said. 

“So do you, everytime you smile.” Yoojung replied. “It’s magical.” 

 

IV. 

“I still don’t really get why you tell me to meet you here for extra practice right after you get out of your actual practice.” Jihoon said as he stepped next to Woojin at the entrance of the school’s outside soccer court. 

Woojin shrugged. “The grind never stops, you know?” 

“Oh my god.” Jihoon groaned. “You’re joking, right? Please tell me you’re joking, I’ll walk straight back home-” 

“Calm down, I’m messing with you.” Woojin laughed. “We’re just having extra practice right now because I’m busy the rest of the weekend.” 

“That makes perfect sense.” Jihoon nodded, voice heavy with sarcasm. “I still don’t get why I’m here though, you know I never played soccer successfully in my life.” 

“Moral support.” Woojin shrugged again. “It was fun when we hung out during physicals.”

Jihoon wanted to give the Jihoon-like answer, just the right amounts of sarcastic and hilarious, but it got lost somewhere along the way of his heartbeat picking up and his face growing warmer, so he just laughed quietly and dropped his head. _Pathetic,_ he told himself. 

“So what am I supposed to do, exactly?” He asked, as Woojin threw his duffel bag on the ground next to the closest bench and, much more carefully, set the soccerball he’d been holding down next to it. 

“I’m not sure.” Woojin admitted, sitting down to change his shoes. “You can always yell at me, I guess.” 

“You know, I’m getting the impression you _want_ me to yell at you.” 

Woojin shook his head. “I honest to god do not, seems like it would be terrifying.” 

“I _am_ terrifying, thank you!” Jihoon beamed. 

“You’re not just terrifying though, you’re also pretty cute.” Woojin grinned. Then he got up from the ground, picked up the ball again and took off with it in the direction of the goal, leaving Jihoon to the cardiac arrest he’d put him in. 

_This is your life now._ Jihoon told himself. Somewhere in his head he was laughing at himself for thinking he’d had it bad for Doyeon, and he barely kept himself from laughing out loud right now when Woojin called for him and his heartrate picked up speed again just at the sound of his name out of Woojin’s mouth. He’d been an idiot. 

“I have something for you to do.” Woojin told him as soon as he’d caught up with him. “Guard the goal.” 

“So you can hit me with the ball? No, thanks.” 

“Preferably the ball won’t hit you but the net.” Woojin laughed. “That’s kind of the point of the game.” 

“Curse your logic.” Jihoon grumbled, but still got ready to assume a somewhat accurate position in the huge metal grid of death. 

As expected, he was terrible. Paired with the fact that Woojin was really good, Jihoon didn’t think their somewhat-practice was doing anything useful in terms of practice for Woojin, but it didn’t seem like they were calling it a day any time soon. Jihoon had stopped counting after what felt like the 100th ball he’d gotten scared of and ducked out of the way from had hit the net, so he wasn’t actually sure how ridiculous this was getting when Woojin finally picked up the ball from the ground. 

“You’re really bad at this.” He said. 

“You don’t say.” Jihoon huffed and walked towards him. “Can we stop now?” He couldn’t help the slight whine. 

“Aw.” Woojin laughed. “Yeah, we can. I’m getting tired anyways.” He motioned for Jihoon to follow him back to the bench where they’d left their stuff, before continuing: “So, what are we doing now?” 

Jihoon hadn’t thought they were doing anything. He had only not asked to stop the pointless practice earlier because he wanted to spend more time with Woojin. “Uhm…” 

Woojin seemed to misinterpret his hesitance. “I mean, we don’t have to do anything.” He hurried to say. “If you don’t want to, that is. You can just go home, it’s kind of late-” 

“No!” Jihoon interrupted him, maybe a tad too loud. “No.” He repeated, quieter. “I just didn’t think- You said you were tired, so…” 

“Oh! Yeah, no it’s not like I’ll drop dead within the next ten seconds.” Woojin explained. Jihoon nodded, not daring his mouth to not sprout out awkward nonsense again and after a few more seconds, Woojin started laughing quietly. 

“God, we’re both terrible at this.” He chuckled. Before Jihoon could ask what ‘This’ was exactly, Woojin had finished packing up. It was probably not that important anyways. Why would it be? 

Before Woojin could start talking again and say something inconvenient, like that they should just go home, or even worse, that Jihoon was cute, like he did sometimes, Jihoon pointed in the direction of the parking lot. “We could go and get some snacks?” He suggested. 

“You trust my driving skills?” Woojin grinned. He already starting moving towards the parking lot. 

“Nope.” Jihoon shook his head without hesitation. “I’m just hungry and I have priorities.” 

“Have you ever sat on a motorcycle?” Woojin asked again about two minutes later in the parking lot. 

Jihoon shook his head again, and shrugged at the same time. It had to make quite the ridiculous image. “Priorities.” He reminded Woojin. 

He got a chuckle in return, one that daring tongues might have described as fond, but Jihoon didn’t dwell on it. 

“I suppose it also doesn’t change your priorities that I don’t have a second helmet with me and we not only are breaking one or two laws with this, but you could also die?” Woojin’s tone was joking, but the look on his face betrayed that he was more serious about this than he let on. 

“The drive is what, 10 minutes?” Jihoon asked, an eyebrow raised in amusement. 

“I’m a law-abiding citizen, Jihoon.” Woojin ignored his question. 

“And I’m hungry.” Jihoon whined. “C’mon, I take full responsibility over this and all that jazz. I’m in my full right and conscious mind and I will drive around with you on this contraption of hell.” 

“I don’t think you have ever been in your right mind once in your life, for the record.” Woojin shook his head like he couldn’t quite believe he was agreeing to this himself. 

The next 10 minutes were interesting for Jihoon, to say the least. One part of him, surprisingly small, wanted to laugh at Woojin, knelt on the ground of the parking lot and trying to get the motorcycle running. 

He had warned Jihoon beforehand that it might take some tries to get the bike running. “She” was apparently very moody. Apparently, her name was Minnie and apparently Woojin’s childhood best friend forced him to name the bike. 

He’d shrugged when Jihoon had raised an eyebrow at him. “I couldn’t think of anything better and Daehwi was very persistent.” 

Really, Jihoon had a lot of reasons to poke a bit of fun at Woojin right at this moment, but he didn’t. He did his best to blame it on the anxiety in his gut that stemmed from the fact that they were about to break the law and it could possibly be dangerous- but in reality that was just a tiny buzzing of adrenaline, more excitement than anything. 

Another part of him, significantly bigger than the one that wanted to make fun of Woojin, was stuck trying to not stare. Which was to say Jihoon was definitely staring, he just tried to tell himself he was very casual about it and definitely not obvious. His ears, feeling warm and probably bright red, were telling a different story, but Woojin was too immersed in trying to get his motorcycle to work to look up and see. 

Jihoon couldn’t really pin-point it, but there was just something about Woojin expertly fumbling with the machinery, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, the muscles in his arm straining to open up a particularly stubborn latch- Jihoon interrupted himself with an involuntary chuckle. 

He had really been convinced he was straight up until a few weeks ago. 

The small sound seemed to break Woojin out of his focus and he looked up. “I’m really trying here, you know?” 

“Oh, I wasn’t laughing about you!” Jihoon hurried to explain. “I was just-” _Amused about my own gay panic about how hot you are._ “I was just, Uh…” 

Woojin laughed and waved him off. “It’s fine, this is pretty ridiculous. Daehwi says I should get a new bike all-together but I’m kind of emotionally attached-” 

While talking, he had tried turning the key in the ignition again, and the bike revved to life. “Aha!” Woojin cheered. He sent a dazzling triumphant smile up at Jihoon that sent him into another bout of gay panic for however long it took for Woojin to get on the bike and turn back to him. 

“Ready to go?” 

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Jihoon tried to joke. 

Clumsily, and taking way longer than he probably should have, he climbed onto the seat behind Woojin. When he was finally set, he found himself confronted with the age-old classic dilemma: He didn’t know where to put his hands. 

He was robbed from the opportunity to worry about it in the appropriate cliché way, when Woojin reached back for Jihoon’s hands and simply wrapped them around his own torso without a word. Jihoon wondered how often you could gay panic within the same 10 minutes before it became concerning. 

The drive to the convenience store could have taken 10 minutes or an hour, they probably could have crashed and Jihoon wouldn’t have noticed. Of course the sole reason for this was that he had never been on a motorcycle before and they were breaking several laws, it had nothing to do with the close proximity he had to Woojin. 

“We lived!” Woojin cheered quietly after he’d parked the bike and took off his helmet. Some strands of his hair were matted against his forehead, others sticking up in every which direction. 

Without thinking, Jihoon reached up and fixed them for him. Woojin blinked at him and he immediately stopped in his tracks and slowly let his hand drop. 

“Uhm. Yeah, we lived!” He echoed weakly, trying to will down the warmth in his cheeks. 

Gladly, Woojin didn’t seem to dwell on it, he just shot Jihoon a grin and then hopped off of the seat, gesturing for Jihoon to do the same. While following him across the parking lot, Jihoon spied Woojin reaching up to fix a few more strands of his hair and he couldn’t help but smile to himself. 

Convenience stores were weird at night, Jihoon thought as they stepped through the door and were immediately engulfed by calming elevator music and pale neoprene light. It somehow didn’t feel real. 

A young man was standing behind the counter, staring off into space while popping a bubblegum, next to him a small electric fan was the only noise cutting through the soft music. 

“Hi there!” He greeted, when he noticed the two boys. “Can I help you with anything?” 

The expressions on their faces probably betrayed their surprise, so the guy continued: “You’re probably just gonna get what you need and come to the register to ring it up. That’s how this works.” He chuckled, seemingly at himself. “Sorry, just not a lot of customers tonight. I’m Seongwoo, if you need anything, yell. Or something.” 

Woojin lifted his hand in a small salute. “Will do.” 

Then he let the same hand drop again and used it to grab a hold onto Jihoon’s and pull him in one of the aisles of the store. Again, like it had happened multiple times this evening, he didn’t even look back to witness the mental breakdown he was sending Jihoon in. Maybe he was just out for Jihoon’s integrity and nerves today. 

To cover up the turmoil his insides were in, Jihoon did what he did best: he complained. 

“How can you still walk places so energetically after running after a ball all night? Seriously, dude.” He let himself fall back a bit, pulling on Woojin’s arm in the process. “You’re dislocating my shoulder.” 

They stopped in the middle of an aisle filled with pralinées. Woojin was looking at his hand around Jihoon’s wrist as if it was a new limb he had just grown and he hadn’t been aware he’d been doing it. 

“Oh…” He said slowly. “Sorry.” 

But he made no move to let go of Jihoon’s wrist. 

“It’s okay.” Jihoon assured him. His initial desire to complain had been lost between the boxes of chocolate somewhere. So had whatever determination Woojin had had before Jihoon had stopped him, apparently, and now they were just standing in the middle of the aisle, looking at each other. Jihoon’s cheeks felt annoyingly warm again. 

“Uhm.” He spoke up, and the tiny noise seemed to break Woojin out of whatever he had been thinking. 

“Yeah!” He exclaimed and let Jihoon’s arm drop after what felt like an eternity. “What uh-” He cleared his throat. “What did you want to get actually?” 

Looking around the store and pretending to think about the question was a great excuse to hide the blush on his face, so Jihoon did just that. He was taking probably a tiny bit longer than necessary, especially considering he always got the same on late escapades to the convenience store. 

“A slushie and some sour patch kids.” He answers. 

“So like, frozen sugar and sugar with more sugar on it?” Woojin’s grin is teasing when Jihoon meets his eyes again. It makes looking at him way easier, way more casual, way less flustering. 

“Well, what are _you_ getting?” Jihoon asked, his own grin mirroring Woojin’s while they slowly started moving to the aisle that held jellies and the likes. 

“Coke and cheese puffs.” Is Woojin’s immediate reply, and Jihoon turns to him to hit his arm lightly. 

“Oh, that’s _much_ healthier.” 

Woojin’s laugh cut through the small store, soon joined by a small shriek from Jihoon when Woojin retaliated his punch with a poke to his side. 

“Behave back there, please.” Seongwoo called from the front. “Or don’t break anything that I’ll have to clean up at least.” 

“No promises!” Woojin called back. Lowering his voice again, a mischievous glint in his eyes he asked Jihoon: “You’re ticklish.” 

“No.” Jihoon blurted immediately and pointedly turned to the shelf in front of them. “You wanted these, right? Here you go.” He shoved a bag of cheese puffs into Woojin’s arms before continuing down the aisle. 

With a quiet chuckle Woojin followed him after a second but left it at that, luckily. 

About ten minutes later they stepped out of the store again. Jihoon expected to feel weird, like he was stepping back into the real world from the subliminal space he’s been in, but as soon as the door closed behind them Woojin poked his side again and asked for a sip of his slushie and then made a run for it after Jihoon threatened to throw said slushie at his head. It still felt like they were in the surreal enclosed space of the neoprene lights, somehow, just the two of them. This time there wasn’t even a slightly annoying cashier present who tried to tell them his entire life’s story while they were paying. 

Slowly, Jihoon walked over to were Woojin was waiting for him with a small smile, leant against his bike. His heart didn’t even go into a huge panic about how attractive Woojin looked just standing there like this and he mentally patted himself on the back. 

“Where to?” Woojin asked as soon as Jihoon was in ear-shot. 

“The stars.” Jihoon automatically replied. Yoojung had made sure to systematically program his brain like this over years of regular movie nights. 

Woojin released a short laugh. “What?” 

“ _’Where to, my Lady?’ - ‘The stars.’_?” Jihoon repeated but was only met with the same eyebrow raised in amusement. “Titanic?” He tried again and Woojin nodded. 

“Yeah, I never saw that.” 

Jihoon blinked at him a few times. “How.” 

He had forgotten to make it sound like a question, but Woojin still answered with a shrug and a laugh. “I don’t know, I never got around to and I kind of know the whole plot by osmosis so why bother to watch it?” 

“To get a good cry?” 

Now it was on Woojin to blink. “Why would I want that?” 

And now it was on Jihoon to shrug. “Sometimes you just gotta cry, dude.” 

“I don’t cry.” 

Jihoon said nothing to that in reply and only narrowed his eyes at Woojin. He immediately caved in. 

“Okay, maybe I cried during Up.” 

Jihoon kept glaring. 

“And Romeo +Juliet.” 

Now Jihoon did drop his piercing glare. “You’ve seen Romeo + Juliet?” 

“Yeah, why not?” 

“Doesn’t seem like a very ‘Highschool Jock Who’s Too Cool To Cry’ movie to watch.” Jihoon replied. What he thought but didn’t say was that it didn’t seem like a very straight movie to watch. 

Woojin looked at him very seriously. “But consider: 90’s Leo.” 

It really wasn’t a straight movie to watch, a small part of Jihoon’s brain thought, while the much bigger rest of it was yelling about this new-found implied information. It took him precisely 4 seconds of blinking and all acting skill to gather his thoughts. 

“But you haven’t seen Titanic?” 

Woojin wasn’t aware of a lot of things in a lot of occasions. The significance of what he’d just told Jihoon was no exception, it seemed. “Yeah, because I know the whole plot already.” He replied, then lifted a head to knock against Jihoon’s head. “Keep up.” 

“But how can you get bored when 90’s Leo’s face is right there?” Jihoon tried, just to be sure he hadn’t understood wrongly. 

Woojin pursed his lips in thought for a second. “Good point.” He allowed. “You know, maybe we should watch Titanic at some point.” 

“Yeah.” Jihoon said and gave his all so his voice wouldn’t sound as strained as he felt. “We definitely should.” 

Woojin grinned. “Cool, it’s a date then.” 

Jihoon said nothing to that, because he didn’t trust himself to, just finished his slushie in silence as Woojin tapped a quiet beat against the handles of his bike. 

The atmosphere could have nearly been serene if not for the chaos in Jihoon’s head.

“So.” Woojin spoke up again when Jihoon had tried and failed to throw the empty cup into a nearby bin. “Where do we go now?” 

“The stars are not an option, I’m guessing?” Jihoon tried for a lame joke. 

“I’m afraid not.” Woojin chuckled, looking up at the nightsky, only slightly dimmed by the town’s lights. “I might have an idea though.” 

Woojin’s idea did nothing to help any of the chaos in Jihoon’s mind. 

They had left Woojin’s bike at the bottom of a small hill that overlooked the town and had made their way up. At one point Woojin had grown impatient with him and had grabbed Jihoon’s hand to pull him along. It all felt and looked a little bit like a dream when they arrived at the top. 

Jihoon thought about how he’d promised Yoojung to be at the school’s gates to meet her after they were done at the auditorium and the court and he wondered if she was already waiting for him. But he also knew that she probably wouldn’t hold it against him when he told her about the wind against his face as they drove over here, the feeling of Woojin’s hand in his, the town’s lights faintly reflecting in Woojin’s eyes as he smiled at him. 

He really hoped Yoojung had a similar story to tell at the end of the night. 

“There we are.” Woojin announced, pulling Jihoon out of his thoughts. “The stars. Or as close as you can get to them in this place, I guess.” He gestured to the sky above them with his free hand, the other one still firmly clasped around Jihoon’s. Jihoon hoped it wasn’t an accident this time, like at the store. 

He hoped that it also hadn’t been an accident at the store. 

They sat down on the grass a short while later, looking at the stars, looking at the town, talking way quieter than the wide open space around them warranted. 

Later, Jihoon wouldn’t be able to tell how long it exactly had been before the conversation slowly tickled out, a content kind of sleepy silence engulfing them. When Woojin looked at him and spoke up again it seemed like an eternity later, and Jihoon would have been fine with it if it was. 

“You know,” Woojin said lowly, barely above a whisper. “I’m glad we did that music project together.” 

Jihoon didn’t know what to reply, so he didn’t, just held Woojin’s gaze and waited for him to continue. 

He did, with a small laugh. “That sounds really cheesy, doesn’t it? I don’t know I’m just-” He seemed to be looking for the right words. The timbre of his voice suggested that Woojin’s mind was maybe just as much of a mess as Jihoon’s, that his cheeks were just as warm as Jihoon’s started to feel again. 

“I like spending time with you.” Woojin continued. “You even made the gym fun. And you rather discussed Star Wars with me than doing some really relevant studying. And you agreed to help me practice even though you suck at soccer.” Woojin laughed again. “I still sound cheesy.” 

He squeezed Jihoon’s hand tightly and it felt like he was trying to say a lot more with it than he already had. “I’m just glad.” He repeated. 

Jihoon had suffered through a lot of internal breakdowns this evening, about things Woojin had said off-handedly, had done seemingly without giving it any thought. 

Now, with his eyes focussed on Jihoon, with earnestness and a certain determination in them, Jihoon felt like his mind should break down again, should go into full-on shut down in fact. 

But it didn't. It remained surprisingly calm, told him that he should reply something, told him not to overthink it. 

But Jihoon didn’t know what to reply, so he didn’t, and he didn’t know what to think, so he didn’t, when he lifted his free hand to cup Woojin’s cheek and leaned in to press their lips together. 

*** 

When he arrived at home a while later, dropping down on his bed with a peculiar smile on his face, his eyes caught the slip of paper on his night-stand. 

In glittering lines and letters, his and Yoojung’s plan sat there, and he couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of it all. 

Now he couldn’t really tell anymore which line lead where, and he thought that that was a really fitting way to look at it. 

Maybe their plan had worked out after all, he thought, as he chanced a look at his phone. 

 

 **Yoojung:** ok ignore those 7382929 heart emoji smashes earlier 

**Yoojung:** i hope your night was just as good as mine  <3 

**Yoojung:** i’m SURE it was!!!!!!! 

**Yoojung:** i’ll go to sleep now and dream of bubblegum chapstick or sth  <3 <3 call me tomorrow! (AT A REASONABLE HUMAN TIME PLEASE) 

 

Jihoon was pretty sure their plan had worked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on [twitter](http://www.twitter/lilaliacs) if you have questions or just wanna talk!!

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/yyxy_v)


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